Toys 'R' Us Stops Selling a Violent Video Game

By TOM REDBURN

Published: December 17, 1993

Amid growing public complaints about the display of blood and guts in video games, Toys 'R' Us, the nation's largest seller of toys and games, said yesterday that it had stopped selling the Sega Genesis home video game Night Trap because it is too violent for children.

But the company, which has 581 retail stores across the country, will continue to sell Mortal Kombat, a much more widely available game that has also generated protests by parents over its violence and sexual content.

The move comes as an outcry over the level of violence on television and in video entertainment has led to calls for some form of regulation of the video game industry.

At a United States Senate subcommittee hearing on the issue last week representatives of Sega Enterprises and Nintendo of America, which dominate the $6 billion video game industry, and large retailers like Sears and Toys 'R' Us said they would work together to develop a voluntary labeling system aimed at advising parents about the depiction of violence and sex in video games. The ratings, which are likely to be modeled on a similar system followed by the movie industry, are also intended to ward off legislation that would establish more stringent controls.

"We took the game off the shelves and we are not selling it anymore," said Michael Goldstein, vice chairman and chief financial and administrative officer of Toys 'R' Us, which is based in Paramus, N.J. "This is a decision we made several weeks ago with the concurrence of Sega, which agrees with our decision."

Sega, which introduced its own rating system this summer, labels Night Trap as inappropriate for children younger than 17.

In Night Trap, which was introduced last year and is available only in a CD-ROM version for Sega and another digital video game system made by the company 3DO, players try to prevent a gang of hooded vampires from capturing a group of scantily clad sorority sisters. If the player fails, the killers use a neck-drilling device to drain the women's blood.

"I'm very disappointed that Toys 'R' Us would do that," said Tom Zito, president of Digital Pictures, a company based in Palo Alto, Calif., that makes the game for Sega. "While it is certainly not an appropriate game for an 8-year-old, Night Trap is actually very benign and is designed as a parody of a vampire movie."

Mr. Zito said the game was unfairly "pilloried" at the Senate hearing last Thursday, complaining that it was being attacked for "a 20-to-30-second excerpt from a product that has over 100 minutes of video."

Aided by compact disks and computer chips, Night Trap is part of a new wave of more advanced video games that feature live-action characters that look like real people rather than the animated cartoon figures in Super Mario Brothers and similar games. Mr. Zito said that about 100,000 copies of Night Trap have been sold at roughly $60 each.

The decision by Toys 'R' Us touched off actions by other toy retailers, like F.A.O. Schwarz, which also decided to stop selling Night Trap at its stores.

Night Trap can be played only on Sega's more expensive CD-ROM machine, of which only a few hundred thousand have been sold. In contrast to Night Trap, Mortal Kombat is available for the standard Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo players and for their hand-held game units. There are more than 15 million such machines in homes. The company that makes Mortal Kombat, Acclaim Entertainment of Oyster Bay, L.I., says it expects to sell about four million copies of Mortal Kombat this year. 'Thrilled and Very Grateful'

Lethal Enforcer, the only other Sega game labeled MA-17 as inappropriate for children under 17, is available at computer software stores but not at toy stores, a Sega official said.

Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, who has been a leader in the crusade against violent and sexually abusive video games, applauded the move by Toys 'R' Us. "I'm thrilled and very grateful that Toys 'R' Us is drawing some limits," he said.

"Night Trap was the worst. This will help parents raise their children and not leave it up to the video game industry to do so."

Deborah Bronston, a toy industry analyst at Prudential Securities, said she doubted that the action by Toys 'R' Us would have a serious effect on the chain's game sales and might even help bolster sales of Night Trap through other outlets, such as computer software stores. "This has attracted a lot of media attention, but I don't think it will have any impact at Toys 'R' Us," she said.

There was some dispute over when Toys 'R' Us stopped selling Night Trap.

Company officials said they began removing the game shortly after making the decision to do so a few weeks ago. But Night Trap was still freely available as recently as this weekend. Mr. Zito said he bought a copy of the game at a Toys 'R' Us store in Marin County, Calif., last Saturday, and Senator Lieberman said a member of his staff purchased the game at a Toys 'R' Us in the Washington area last Thursday. Not Well Known

While Mortal Kombat is wildly popular among male youths, Night Trap, which is not available in an arcade version, is much less known. At a video arcade in the Smith Haven Mall on Long Island, for example, none of the 50 or so teen-agers clustered around the games yesterday were familiar with Night Trap.

But two 16-year old girls, after having the game described to them, said they had heard about it on the news.

After hearing a brief description of the game, James Tatum, 18, of Coram, grimaced. "That's a little too much," he said, adding that he thought Mortal Kombat was too violent. But, he said, "most kids realize it's just a game. I don't think they have anything to do with violence."

Some video game experts said Night Trap should not be singled out for blame.

Gilliam Newson, a senior editor at New Media, a magazine in San Mateo, Calif., that reviews video games and other interactive video, said she had objected to Night Trap until she actually played it. "I thought it was hysterical," she said. "It is more a Keystone Cops kind of thing than the 'kill or be killed' stuff in Mortal Kombat."

Photo: The video game "Night Trap," which has been taken off the shelves at Toys "R" Us stores. (Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)